IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
King Street, WATFORD, WD18 0BJ

Formerly the Essoldo cinema, later flats, retaining the facade.

Mecca closed this facility (?) in King Street in November 2014, after about 46 years of use as a bingo hall, citing dwindling customers as the reason. The purple sign tells disappointed punters that the nearest other Meccas are in Luton and Hayes. Please see Image for a history of this building which started out in life as a cinema. There are plans to build 25 flats and a retail outlet on the site, necessitating the demolition of much of the back of the building but retaining the Art Deco front facade.

Watford Place is a Grade II Listed building and the Historic England website describes it thus:- "Large stucco faced house of circa 1797, altered circa 1822. Two storey centre, one storey wings. Parapets. Slate roofs. Centre originally 3-storeys. Five window range, square headed windows above, long round headed windows below. Glazing bar sashes. Cornice, platband between floors and moulded ground floor sill band over basement. Central 3 bay porch, 4 Ionic columns with entablature. Curving side walls with round arched openings. Wide steps up. Wings 2 windows each with cornice carried around from centre block platband. Blank arched basement openings. Garden front similar, but without porch, basement and ground floor windows set in arched recesses and simple architrave surrounds applied to 1st floor windows with flat cornices over." According to Pevsner the removal of the top storey and the addition of the Ionic portico both took place during the alterations of 1822. The building has since been used as offices.

Hopefully the wonderful Art Deco frontage will be kept as part of the new development. According to the local paper, the Watford Observer, 'The locally listed building was constructed in 1913, with Central Hall Cinema, Watford’s first large cinema, opening in December that year before it was given its existing art deco renovation in 1930. The cinema closed in 1968 before it became a bingo hall. Mecca Bingo shut down in November 2014.'

This building, on the corner of King Street to the left, and Smith Street to the right, dates from 1888 and was Watford's police station until 1962. In that year the new police station was opened in Shady Lane and this building was converted into a public house, called, unsurprisingly, the Sir Robert Peel, and remained as such until very recently. A comparison with a wood etching of the building made when it was newly constructed reveals that a few things have changed. The ground floor level facings over the original brickwork came with the conversion, as did the loss of the ground floor level corner, and a couple of chimneys have been demolished, including the obvious one above the chimney breast with the terracotta date tablet, which was quite high. The whole block, including Image is earmarked for residential and commercial development as the Met Quarter, and as part of the plans the building was to be demolished. However in June 2007 Watford Borough Council for once sought to preserve what little remains of the town's historic buildings, and refused to uphold the demolition on the grounds that it would have a detrimental impact on the streetscape and on the character and appearance of the conservation area.

This is the main High Street entrance to the covered Harlequin Centre shopping precinct. This now contains most of Watford's town centre chain stores and shops. The dome is a familiar landmark to generations as it was retained from the building that was here previously, Ketts the electrical retailers. The street leading away to the left of the entrance is Queens Road, and the junction with the High Street and the building were generally known as Ketts Corner. The sculpture is of a hornet after the nickname of Watford FC. I am given to understand that the corporate logo on the building on the left indicates that this is some kind of eating establishment.

There has been a cinema building on this site in King Street since 1913 when the Central Hall was constructed. In 1930 the cinema was renamed as the Regal, but the building was virtually entirely replaced by the current Art Deco structure in 1932. It retained the Regal name until 1956 when it became the Essoldo. However it was an early cinema closure in Watford being converted to a bingo hall in 1968, so it has seen longer service now in that guise than it did as a cinema. Mecca's session times and prices for the hall are here http://www.meccabingo.com/php/index.php?package=club_details&action=show_sessions&club_id=334

Elizabeth Fuller (1644–1709), often called Dame Elizabeth Fuller as a title of respect, founded her Free School for forty boys and twenty girls in grounds next to the churchyard of St Mary in 1704. The School eventually developed into the separate Watford Girls' and Boys' Grammar Schools. The building is Grade II* Listed and the Historic England website describes it thus:- "1704 school building. Brick with red brick and stone dressings. Two storeys and attic. Plain tile hipped roof surmounted by 6 sided cupola with lead dome. Two hipped dormers. Regular front. Three window range. Centre breaks forward with pediment. Wood dentil eaves cornice. Stone quoins to centre bay and outer angles. Stone band across. Stone central doorcase with moulded architrave and enriched segmental pediment on brackets. Inscription to Mrs Fuller in broad frieze below. Ten panel double doors. Large round-headed windows with gauged brick arches, wooden Y-tracery and leaded lights. Oval keyed window in pediment with ornamental stucco scroll beneath with MDCCIV in raised letters." On the left is the Grade II Listed Dalton/Guest tomb in the church graveyard.

The mosque was built on the south side of Cambridge Road between 1983 and 1985 with funds raised by the local Muslim community. This view was taken looking across the A411 Exchange Road.

You can just about pick out the words Barclays Bank in the grubby fascia above the ground floor level, and the word Bank carved in the stone lintel above the entrance on the corner of this attractive and historic building, which is at the junction of the High Street to the left and King Street to the right. There are plans to redevelop this whole block stretching down to Image in the distance. To be known as the Met Quarter the redevelopment would have both residential and commercial uses. However this building is not statutorily listed and was under threat of demolition during this redevelopment, until, for once, Watford Borough Council acknowledged its duty to preserve what little remains of historic buildings in the town, and stepped in to demand its retention. The most recent plans appear to be to still demolish the bank but to incorporate the retention of its façade into the new scheme. After Barclays vacated the building it may have been used as a pub or some other type of similar outlet.